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Over the years, all my children have made commitments to be on a sporting team or part of a music ensemble and half way through the term have wanted to stop participating in that group.

I must admit, as much as it would make my life easier to reduce the amount of running around I do, I expect them to honour a commitment so I will never let them drop out of a team activity. I’m a true believer that when you agree to be part of a group, no matter how good or bad you are at the task, you have given your word to be a team player. If every child were to drop out, there wouldn’t be sufficient participants to enable the groups to continue.

Furthermore, when children agree to be part of a group, this commitment also includes attending all practice sessions. This is a constant source of aggravation in our house, as a few of our kids enjoy the music ensembles they play in and sporting teams they belong to, they just don’t like the early morning starts to attend practice. But as saying goes, ‘practice makes perfect’.

We recently attended a performance evening at our children’s school and it was interesting to watch the kids in the choir. You could tell the ones who attend rehearsals as they knew the words and actions to the songs, whereas the kids that obviously don’t attend regularly were left standing on the stage looking a bit like stunned goldfish either not doing any actions, or if trying to copy the other kids, were a few seconds behind.

I worry about the future of the children who are allowed to either not attend practice sessions or are allowed to quit their commitments as it doesn’t give these kids a sense of responsibility, tenacity or reliability. Sometimes ensuring your kids do the right thing isn’t agreeing to the path of least resistance, rather it’s a case of persistence.